The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has
something of the sage in him. _Urbis amator_, like Fuscus; _ruris
amator_, like Flaccus.
To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine
employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that
rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but
odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities,
notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal.
End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning
of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of
the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur,
beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest.
Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the
passing stroller with the epithet: _melancholy_, the apparently
objectless promenades of the dreamer.
He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers of
Paris, and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs. That
close-shaven turf, those pebbly paths, that chalk, those pools, those
harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands, the plants of early
market-garden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom, that mixture
of the savage and the citizen, those vast desert nooks where the
garrison drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of
battle, those hermits by day and cut-throats by night, that clumsy mill
which turns in the wind, the hoisting-wheels of the quarries, the
tea-gardens at the corners of the cemeteries; the mysterious charm of
great, sombre walls squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of
land inundated with sunshine and full of butterflies,—all this
attracted him.
There is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those
singular spots, the Glacière, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle
all speckled with balls, Mont-Parnasse, the Fosse-aux-Loups, Aubiers on
the bank of the Marne, Mont-Souris, the Tombe-Issoire, the Pierre-Plate
de Châtillon, where there is an old, exhausted quarry which no longer
serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a
level with the ground, by a trap-door of rotten planks. The campagna of
Rome is one idea, the banlieue of Paris is another; to behold nothing
but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is
to remain on the surface; all aspects of things are thoughts of God.
The spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always
stamped with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both
appeal to you at the same time there. Local originalities there make
their appearance.
Any one who, like ourselves, has wandered about in these solitudes
contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of
Paris, has seen here and there, in the most desert spot, at the most
unexpected moment, behind a meagre hedge, or in the corner of a
lugubrious wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, dusty,
ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with
corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape
from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the
suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There
they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or
rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May
or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with
their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile,
free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they
recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their
living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with
cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange
children are one of the charming and at the same time poignant graces
of the environs of Paris.
Sometimes there are little girls among the throng of boys,—are they
their sisters?—who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with
sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of
rye, gay, haggard, barefooted. They can be seen devouring cherries
among the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These
groups, warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly
seen in the twilight, occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time,
and these visions mingle with his dreams.
Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference; this constitutes all the earth
to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more
escape from the Parisian atmosphere than fish can escape from the
water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers: Ivry,
Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Ménilmontant,
Choisy-le-Roi, Billancourt, Meudon, Issy, Vanvre, Sèvres, Puteaux,
Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnières,
Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy,
Gonesse; the universe ends there.